Target detection in one visual field in the presence or absence of stimuli in the contralateral field by right- and left-handed subjects.
Marked differences in detectability are observed as a function of retinal locus when subjects are required to find a briefly exposed target pattern of uncertain location in the presence of a number of discriminably different nontarget patterns. Our previous studies using this search paradigm have attributed these detectability differences, and the right visual field detectability superiority associated with them, to a serial (scanning) mechanism which tends to examine stimuli in the right field earlier than those in the left. The present experiment, performed on large groups of right- and left-handed subjects, was designed to test the hypothesis that there are two independent serial processors, one in each hemisphere--an hypothesis which might account for the differences in detectability within and between the two half-fields in terms of hemispheric processing differences. The results are inconsistent with the dual independent serial processor hypothesis but are fully consistent with a single serial processor, a scanning mechanism, which has access to the information presented to both visual half-fields.
Yund
E W
EW
Neurophysiology-Biophysics Research Laboratory, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Martinez, California 94553.
Efron
R
R
Nichols
D R
DR
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012691:Serial Learning; D014794:Visual Fields